In 1877, soon after retiring as president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, embarked with his wife on a two-year tour of the world. At almost every location, he was greeted as a hero. In England, the son of the Duke of Wellington, whose father had vanquished Napoleon, greeted Grant as a military genius, the primary architect of Union victory in the American Civil War. Parading English workers hailed him as the man whose military prowess had saved the world’s leading experiment in democratic government and as a Hero of Freedom who had helped secure the emancipation of America’s four million slaves.More »